“Why should we take care of people in other countries when our own people in Canada need help?” This question has been present in the Church’s work of international solidarity for as long as I have been in it (and likely before as well). 

The voices asking the question grow louder or quieter based on whatever the national economic context is. The context now, with a growing affordability crisis for many people in Canada, is an increasingly louder one. When voices start to question our care and concern as Canadians for the most vulnerable people in our human family, it becomes necessary for Catholics to raise our voices in response accordingly. 

Why should we be taking care of people in other countries? Because we have a moral obligation as Catholics to do so. Our creed does not limit our care to one nation. Pope Leo (before he was pope) famously reminded the Vice-President of the United States, J.D. Vance, of this fact. 

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After Vance made an argument for a ranked approach to love (placing “the rest of the world” at the bottom) and defended it using Augustinian theology, Pope Leo, an Augustinian, responding by tweeting a link to an article in the National Catholic Reporter. The tweet captured the headline of the article, “J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” 

The context of the story above is important. It happened as the United States Government began the dismantling of USAID just over a year ago. This has (by some studies) effectively removed 40% of the dollars spent in the international aid system.

While the United States has certainly been the poster child for the withdrawal of care for our neighbour, it is by no means alone. The theme is common across many western governments, including Canada, which announced cuts of $2.7 billion to overseas development assistance (ODA) over the next four years.

Beyond the “ranked love” of neighbour, there are two other key ideas that drive the justification of this retreat that bear addressing.

One is the idea that cuts are simply eliminating wasteful spending that do more to fatten the bank accounts of corrupt politicians or of NGOs that are greedy at worst and inefficient at best. I do not argue that wasteful spending does not exist. We should always be making efforts to ensure that our support for our brothers and sisters is as effective as possible, and we can always do better. But these cuts are nowhere in proportion to actual waste. One year after the cuts began, we do not have a “more efficient system.” We do have more people dying.

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 According to one study on the impact of the USAID cuts specifically, 781,343 preventable deaths have occurred in the last year. This was cited at an event I recently attended in starker terms – 88 people have died every hour of the last year who did not have to. And the impact of these cuts to the international aid system are only just beginning.

The second idea is that we must choose between helping people at home and helping people overseas. We do not need to choose. We can support both, especially because the amount of money that we spend as a country on international aid as a percentage of our gross national income is exceedingly small. 

How small exactly? In 1970, the United Nations adopted a target for Industrialized countries to spend 0.7% of their GNI on international aid, inspired by a report led by former Canadian Prime Minister, Leaster B. Pearson. If our gross national income was represented by $100 – the target would be to spend seventy cents helping the most impoverished people on the planet.

Canada has never come close to that target. Preliminary data from the OECD for 2024 puts our spending at 0.34%, or thirty-four cents. So even if we were to reduce our ODA to zero dollars, the amount extra money for ‘our own’ would be negligible.

I find myself thinking about what it means for us to be witnesses of the resurrected Christ as we journey through the Easter season. Right now, I think it means responding to the increased volume from those who would sacrifice the least among us by raising our own voice alike. If we are to be worthy bearers of the Good News of the Resurrection, we must witness that every life, no matter where it is on the planet, is worth caring for.

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